How to Cut America's Healthcare Spending by 50 Percenthttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-cut-americas-healthcare-spending-by-50-2012-8/comments
en-usWed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500Fri, 09 Dec 2016 10:44:40 -0500Charles Hugh Smithhttp://www.businessinsider.com/c/503a4328eab8ea456e000031dominiconomicsSun, 26 Aug 2012 11:39:20 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/503a4328eab8ea456e000031
China healthcare is the best.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50365abc69bedda55e000007ghostdogThu, 23 Aug 2012 12:30:52 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50365abc69bedda55e000007
Interesting idea but Tort Reform lawyers and people that defraud medicade & workman's comp are 70% of the democratic party so it will never happenhttp://www.businessinsider.com/c/50358931eab8ea757b000026obie wanWed, 22 Aug 2012 21:36:49 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50358931eab8ea757b000026
where there is a will there is a way. but there's no will. if there was we'd have very reasonable healthcare already. by simply analyzing where every dollar of those moneys goes and chop it right there back to reason. for example, if doctors are paid exorbitant fees for their services, and few can afford it, no problem, establish 3 classes of medics each on different degree of competency, and therefore different difficulty level tests they would have to pass, and different rates they would be allowed to charge. most doctor or hospital visits can already be handled by nurses. get rid of regulation and let the market forces work, because affordability really matters at our level. same could be done with hospitals. how about a housewife caring for somebody at her home for one tenth of what a hospital would charge. and so on, you get the picture. our overgrown government is killing us, literally.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50354ea769beddb10200000cDownhill from hereWed, 22 Aug 2012 17:27:03 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50354ea769beddb10200000c
And at 6-8% medical inflation you are back up to the same cost in 3 years, eating through whatever savings you might have gained. And that medical inflation is not health insurance premiums. It's the cost increases of phama's, hospitals, medical devices, lab tests, doctors, etc.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50353a71eab8ea9e5800000aCostlyWed, 22 Aug 2012 16:00:49 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50353a71eab8ea9e5800000a
Bandaids should never cost $50 a piece. Healthcare costs are like pentagon spending where a paper clip will cost you $100.00.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50353368eab8ea694b000001Piece of CrabWed, 22 Aug 2012 15:30:48 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50353368eab8ea694b000001
Sure let us listen to Canada for our healthcare problems. The same Canada that routinely runs out of money and people who want care come to the US for their procedures. Signing everyone up for national health care won't solve one damn thing unless you have a process and system to handle 300 million people, which we do not have. In fact, there are not enough doctors and nurses to take care of the folks now who need care. The only way Canada and GB can afford to make ends meet it to ration care, the same scenario that the US will be forced to go to for Obamacare. There is not a good way to cover health care UNLESS each and every person is forced to take part in their care by paying more of their care by increasing co-pays and medication. Preventative care is virtually impossible in a system that is set up for tertiary care.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50352fb0eab8ea2a3f000016Milly CooperWed, 22 Aug 2012 15:14:56 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50352fb0eab8ea2a3f000016
Indeed. I'm shocked.
He forgot the US bureaucracy, though. That inefficiency should be culled with standardized forms of billing.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50352f5aeab8eac43e00002bMilly CooperWed, 22 Aug 2012 15:13:30 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50352f5aeab8eac43e00002b
"Let patients and doctors make their own decisions, within their own means."
Doctors are greedy and patients are stupid. Why is that the optimum?
"There is no legitimate reason why healthcare couldn't be a regular free market."
Legitimate? It is a political reason, if you are allowed to sell your grandmother to a brothel. Or eat her.
"This approach is basically the same as ObamaCare; central planning, micromanaging every single aspect of the system"
Yes, and if some rich people are not happy with the basic care which provides what they need, they can buy what they don't need from the free market.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50352b8becad049367000001RichWed, 22 Aug 2012 14:57:15 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50352b8becad049367000001
There were some genuine specific ideas here which were actually good and balanced. That being said there were a lot of platitudes towards the latter half of the list. You can say "get rid of fraud", and that sounds great. Everyone would agree with that. However, you have to have tangible and implementable solutions to that suggestion or it's worthless. The fact is that if the system exists there will be fraud. So, let's not be so pie in the sky with this thing. That just isn't realistic. Whether this guy is a doctor from Canada or not. Sure, he might be in a better position to describe what he saw, but not necessarily in providing solutions.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50351e286bb3f7290f000001dynamo2666Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:00:08 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50351e286bb3f7290f000001
Just to be clear, the last comment refers to the authors decision to rescind advertising rights to patients. There is no corking that bottle, particularly in the era of social media.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/503515ebeab8ea1708000002dynamo2666Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:24:59 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/503515ebeab8ea1708000002
Very interesting ideas, but here's the one I don't understand. Why focus on drug spend which is only 15-18% of the total healthcare spend, as opposed to labour costs? The reality is that the american healthcare professional (physicians, nurses, technicians, etc) consume 35-40% of all healthcare costs and are paid 25-30% more than their peers in other western world countries. More succinctly what is it that motivated our canadian colleague to relocate to the USA since he/she clearly was not enamoured with the health care system? The growth of reimbursed medical tourism is further testiment to this health-care salary arbitrage.
Furthermore the pay discrepancy based on specialty (ie cardiologist, surgeon) can be 10X that of a family physician, which there is a national shortage. These specialties often reach for more aggressive therapies than our warranted due to higher reimbursement rates. The medical community rationalizes their compensation based on the student loans they incur during a long ardurous education period. They often forget their original motivations that they espoused to their medical school selection committee by the time they graduate given the time period they have been in school. It is disheartening to hear residents perseferate on how they will spend their post-graduation salaries. Wouldn't a more rationale/cheaper approach be to compensate residents and interns better, but place greater controls on long-term salaries to prevent this systemic desensitization of altruistic motivation. The bottom-line is that until the AMA and other professional organizations are willing to fairly address the issues of compensation there credibility is severely undermined.
Finally, the author cannot be serious that in the information age era he wants to turn back the clock and make the physician the sole arbiter of healthcare knowledge!!! How patronizing, given the medical community's stated goal of empowering patients to actively manage their health. One has to wonder which of the "bad" doctor group's he/she belongs too if the physician cannot appropriately respond to a few simple questions from a non-medically trained individual.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50350eec69bedd1f68000004Reader's Digest VersionWed, 22 Aug 2012 12:55:08 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/50350eec69bedd1f68000004
Here's what he said
1) Control Prices and reduce supply. Make government the middle man
2) Charge people more after they have already paid taxes on it
3) 50 million more people choosing from a list of providers that is 25% fewer than when #1 was introduced. waiting times to see choice increases by months
4) Stop defensive medicine, this on seems ok
5) Death Panels
6) tell people to stop lying and exaggerating
7) make people less informed about the durgs they can't get prescribed because they can't see their physician in proper time, anyway
8) no new research, no investment, no new advancements allowed, no competition
9) Stop Fraud. Sign a law that tells people to stop defrauding other people. we'll use the honor system to enforce
More BS More BS MOre BS. #13 is hilarious
4)http://www.businessinsider.com/c/503505d3ecad04fb21000006By the NumbersWed, 22 Aug 2012 12:16:19 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/503505d3ecad04fb21000006
You would save 50% by getting the government out of the picture.
Historically everything that government subsidizes goes up at least twice the rate of inflation year-over-year once the subsidies kick in. Take your pick - and look at the actual numbers for education, agriculture, energy, housing - and now healthcare.
The CBO report on healthcare two weeks ago and the numbers should be alarming, especially since the law has not even totally kicked in yet.
No spin here, these are numbers from the Obama Administration.
- Spending projections for 2013-2019 have increased by $124 billion
- Revenue projections for 2013-2019 have increased by $46 billion
Medicare cuts for 2013-2019 have decreased by $59 billion, but ten-year cuts now total $743 billion
- Deficit reduction for 2013-2019 has decreased from $140 to $4 billion
- Doctors are dropping out at a rate of about 15%, so there will be less quality physicans to choose from.
- Major cost-shifting much of it to the States, which are already big financial trouble.
Not only is Obamacare is going to spend more money, tax more people, and do less to reduce the deficit than was previously promised, we are looking at higher individual premium cost, few employer-paid heathcare plans, less choice and a lower quality of care across the board.
You should read the CBO report. It is called the Audacity of Math.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034fe6beab8ea7350000017citizen1Wed, 22 Aug 2012 11:44:43 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034fe6beab8ea7350000017
Pretty good except:
#1 NO TAX INCREASE. Take the money from worthless things like Dept of Energy and Dept of Education and welfare for illegals and worthless wars.
#7 No need to outlaw advertising. It should be encouraged. When a Walmart with grocery opened in my newspaper's area, for several weeks Walmart ran ads comparing a total basket of groceries against local grocery chains, one chain per ad each week. I would like to see hospitals do this, or be free and encouraged to do this.
#7 relation: The US needs to stop protecting consumers "from" imported drugs, and adopt the same "most favored nation" pricing for drugs that other countries use which causes US-developed drugs sold in other countries to be far cheaper than right here in the US. Drug company ads would disappear naturally as those artificial US government protected profits disappear. Non-US countries would have to start paying more for their US-developed drugs. Tough shit for them.
#13 Don't have to outlaw HFCS, just free the sugar market. No subsidies, no quotas.The US price of sugar will be half what it is now, like the world price is now. Kill all kinds of other subsidies at the same time.
A few things to think about: why is every hospital in the US a god awful incomprehensible physical mess in layout, and none are the same? Why is every doctor's office a physically different and ridiculous mess of layout and none are the same? The services in either type are about the same. These go right along with the ridiculous incompatible computer programs used in hospitals and doctor offices. Compare these to, for example, Walmarts which have two or three standard layouts, and 7-11s which have two or three standard layouts.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034fbb169beddd23b000001Agent 99Wed, 22 Aug 2012 11:33:05 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034fbb169beddd23b000001
Quite the contrary Mr. Unger. My point is that your personal attacks on judeo/christian values and those that you have personally determined are "rich" immoral are just that.
You are doing little more than name calling and participating in class warfare with strawman arguments, rather than looking at real solutions to real problems.
As the say goes, when your point the finger at others remember there are three more point back at you.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f56becad04a601000022Felix UngerWed, 22 Aug 2012 11:06:19 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f56becad04a601000022
I do realize that. I also see that your viewpoint is that government should be limited so that you can get rich but not care that you survive disease. Is this a value judgment or moral imperative?http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f46eecad04fd03000001badbobWed, 22 Aug 2012 11:02:06 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f46eecad04fd03000001
You are looking at it wrong. You are assuming that the cost is in addition to what the govt. is spending. By getting rid of the health insurance companies, 20% of the cost is cut right off the top. Additionally, the people currently insured would just transfer the insurance payments to govt instead of insurance companies.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f45269bedd8f25000009C. RussoWed, 22 Aug 2012 11:01:38 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f45269bedd8f25000009
What I would love to see is more "profitable" insurance companies in the mix. Right now my state has about six to choose from. Love it or leave it.
We used to have 3 times that amount offering all different types of policies. Now they have all basically been regulated out of business.
When was the last time you saw a healthcare insurance company advertising for your business they way car insurance companies do? They don't have to. It is just a rigged system full of political paybacks.
Bring the profit motive back! It is also the number one way to cut out fraud and abuse.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f3baeab8ea663d000004badbobWed, 22 Aug 2012 10:59:06 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f3baeab8ea663d000004
Hopefully, you will soon get an incureable illness.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f1bf6bb3f7033d000004Holly WoodsWed, 22 Aug 2012 10:50:39 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f1bf6bb3f7033d000004
You do realize that you have to pay for MediCare. It can get quite expensive. My parents are on it and for the two of them it is over $1,000 per month.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f0feecad04d977000010Agent 99Wed, 22 Aug 2012 10:47:26 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034f0feecad04d977000010
People die. It is a fact of life. It doesn't matter what religion you are.
More people die around the world from lack of access to basic clean drinking water, no vaccinations, accidents and violence than from lack of top-notch healthcare.
Religous and charitable organizations often do far more to address these problems than the governments and worldwide organizations that in many times create and perpetuate them.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034e9386bb3f71a2a000017Dr KerWed, 22 Aug 2012 10:14:16 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034e9386bb3f71a2a000017
Add a comment...You are the only one , who commented with freedom.
You did'nt use the CENTRAL PLANNERS bs.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034e7b16bb3f71b2a000006gurn2Wed, 22 Aug 2012 10:07:45 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034e7b16bb3f71b2a000006
Awesome! This man is right on.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034e54eecad04cf6200000cFactualThinkingWed, 22 Aug 2012 09:57:34 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034e54eecad04cf6200000c
Add this to the list;
A national data warehouse of all healthcare billing data. This would allow tracking of fraud, better tracking the effectiveness of treatment, compare ROI of competing treatments and providers etc.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034e2a1eab8ea0014000015TinFoil HatManWed, 22 Aug 2012 09:46:09 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034e2a1eab8ea0014000015
Good luck getting Point 1 "ONLY US CITIZENS" past the Dems in congress.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034dfefeab8ea8e0c00000bMind BogglingWed, 22 Aug 2012 09:34:39 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034dfefeab8ea8e0c00000b
This is just another mind-numbing multi-faceted argument that is all about taking power and privacy from people and giving it to the power-brokers and the pencil pushers.
What we need are more free-market elements in the mix that include:
1. Additional and competitive insurance options
2. A better array of alternative care choices
3. Increased incentives for cost control - not price control
4. Patients having more say about how and when their dollars are spent instead of allocating that to third-party payers
5. And even something as simple as "cash-discounts" - something that almost every other industry offers.
Central planning schemes as advocated here are about nothing more than the elimination of choice.
The elimination of choice is the elimination of freedom.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034dcf6ecad04f25100000dPeter VerkooijenWed, 22 Aug 2012 09:21:58 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034dcf6ecad04f25100000d
This approach is basically the same as ObamaCare; central planning, micromanaging every single aspect of the system, chasing unintended consequences.
There is no legitimate reason why healthcare couldn't be a regular free market. Sure it is a matter of live and death, but so is food or housing. Cut out government. Cut out insurance except for high unforeseen costs - hospital stays, operations etc. Decentralize. Let patients and doctors make their own decisions, within their own means.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034dc646bb3f7c012000024cwwWed, 22 Aug 2012 09:19:32 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034dc646bb3f7c012000024
I would love to see this plan implemented, too bad we are going to continue to let people die so insurance companies can keep their profits.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034dab1ecad04ff51000003charleyrockWed, 22 Aug 2012 09:12:17 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034dab1ecad04ff51000003
Practical, efficient and smart. It is so sad, however, that in our current political system, a plan such as this would be reduced to a handful of apocalyptic sound-bites and the sponsor would be demonized and dismissed by political opponents and lobbyists from insurance and drug companies.
It is laughable and pathetic that Paul Ryan's plan is described as bold. This plan is bold.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034d9636bb3f77b0c000013hkgonraWed, 22 Aug 2012 09:06:43 -0400http://www.businessinsider.com/c/5034d9636bb3f77b0c000013
Wouldn't it be much easier to just make people pay their own bills ? If you can't pay then you don't get service.